laetus

Laetus is a Latin adjective meaning joyful, glad, happy; it can also convey sense of fertility, abundance, or prosperity. In classical Latin it is used to describe people, places, or things characterized by fullness or good fortune. The word is declined as laetus, laeta, laetum in the masculine, feminine, and neuter respectively, with plural laeti, laetae, laeta. Its comparative form is laetiōr and the superlative laetissimus; an adverbial form is laete.

In everyday Latin, laetus appears in phrases such as a fertile country or a happy person, and it can function as an attributive adjective or, less commonly, as a predicate adjective. Like many adjectives, it agrees with the noun it modifies in gender, number, and case, and it can appear early or late in the sentence depending on emphasis. The semantic field includes both emotional happiness and material abundance, reflecting a common classical sense that good fortune encompasses both inner joy and outward prosperity.

Etymologically, laetus is of classical Latin origin, belonging to the laet- family of roots associated with joy and plenitude. The precise lineage is uncertain, but the term has yielded related forms in later Latin and in some Romance languages, where descendants often carry meanings related to happiness or fullness.

Derived terms include laetitia (joy, gladness), and laetus frequently appears in poetic and rhetorical contexts to evoke a sense of prosperity or well-being. In modern scholarly usage, laetus is encountered mainly in the study of Latin grammar, poetry, and philology, as well as in historical texts where Latin vocabulary is being analyzed.